


Re-in-vent the Revent

by cher



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Human/Machine Sex, M/M, Mental Health Intervention by the Unqualified, Mildly Dubious Consent, Other, Psychos in love, Rough Sex, Sadist Ship Meets Masochist Human, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Typical SC Machinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28129623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/pseuds/cher
Summary: The ship waited, pointedly. Sma gestured that she was out of ideas. “I think he needs a friend and I think you could be it.”
Relationships: GOU Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints/Cheradenine Zakalwe
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Re-in-vent the Revent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karanguni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/gifts).



"Listen, pal, I still don't think that strictly speaking this is a great idea, but your skin and all," the ship said. 

"It's a terrible idea," Zakalwe agreed, trying to get comfortable. The explosive wrap was restrictive, that was for sure. "Which is why we're doing it. You don't win wars by not being terrible."

The ship made a humming noise. "I don't think that's quite the argument you think it is, but have at it. I've done my token duty to talk you out of your insane plan, and I will now hang around here _—_ or maybe on the edge of the system, just to be safe _—_ and await the no doubt grisly outcome. Do try to give me some warning if things have gone truly up shit creek, will you? I really don’t like it when Sma is cross with me. I’d rather avoid it."

"Wouldn’t we all," Zakalwe muttered, checking his weapons and his wire body wrap. It pinched, but he wouldn’t have to put up with it for long. 

"Okay then, Cheradanine, off you go. Enjoy yourself, won't you?"

The bright, sort of manic light in the human's eyes as he disappeared from view was a tad worrying. No wonder Sma was concerned. That dude was about to implode in the bad way. 

Right now he was going to **_ex_** plode, by his own designs, which was a whole other thing. Sort of compelling. The ship could admire the commitment to mayhem, really.

_

_Somewhat earlier_

Skaffen-Amtiskaw sulked, as it usually did when forced aboard GOU _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_. Probably it would sulk less if Demeisen didn’t provoke it so, but how could a ship resist? It was so easy. 

Besides, what grounds did it have; a drone famous for its extremely funny and extremely poor taste hat joke? Hypocritical, that’s what it was. 

Sma, though. Sma was the kind of human it liked having aboard. Knew what she wanted and how to get it. A fascinating human, and much less irritating than most of her colleagues. 

“So,” it said, “Now we’re finally away from all possible listening ears, unless of course the ears have gone Sublime in ways we cannot yet perceive, what’s so fucking secretive the rest of SC has to be kept out? Sounds exciting.”

Sma shifted, and glared at Skaffen-Amtiskaw’s muttered comments. The ship pretended it hadn’t heard. “I’m pretty sure I’m about to lose Zakalwe again, and the last time this happened he blew up a knife missile somehow _—_ we still don’t know what he did _—_ and set up his own private one man Contact show, moonlighting as his own SC. You remember; it did not go well. I think this time he may forego the benevolence entirely.”

“And you think I’m the best option you have?” The ship was surprised. It was not famous for its balanced psych. It was famous for other things entirely. 

“I think that short of _—_ well, acting outside the normal moral constraints, shall we say _—_ you’re the only option I have. He won’t have glands implanted, he won’t have a neural lace, he won’t even work with a drone. Short of interfering with him without his consent he’s all on his own in his own head, and I don’t think it’s a survivable place as it is. But,” she said, a bit resigned, “I think you can meet him halfway.”

The ship waited, pointedly. She gestured that she was out of ideas. “I think he needs a friend and I think you could be it.” 

“Huh,” said the ship. “Well, it has the advantage of not having been tried before.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. You were friends with Lededje Y'breq; you still are.”

“Yes, keep sending it the murderous ones, that’s a good strategy,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw complained. “It’ll build its own little army and you’ll be sorry you introduced them.”

“Well, anything to upset Skaffen-Amtiskaw,” said the ship. “Also I want to know what he did to the knife missile. I’ll give it a shot. Where do I find him?”

_

After the (successful, thank you very much) explosive wrap gambit, the ship healed him entirely whether he liked it or not. He certainly did not. 

“Listen, Zakalwe,” it said, continuing with the weird recruiting drive it had going, “we ought to be a perfect match. I find pain fascinating, you find pain necessary. We both like a good explosion! But this self-annihilating thing, it’s not so great. Bad for you, bad for the Culture, really pretty bad for SC in the long run even if the bastards are exploiting you a bit in the short term, bad for me if you keep getting me pulled away from the good patrol spots. So let’s stop it. Fix it one way or the other, hey?”

It proposed war games, or what it thought of as war games, and it was the strangest sex of Zakalwe’s life. It was definitely sex, even if he couldn’t have drawn a diagram to explain how even if you gave him a hundred years and an entire team of researchers and conceptual artists.

He was inside the ship’s Mind, somehow. It had found a way to let him in, in the Real to a certain extent; not just a virtual environment. Jacked in. The old, wetware way. The Culture as a whole would find it barbaric, which was why he’d agreed. “Come on, Zakalwe,” it said. “Show me the kind of thing that gets past a knife missile.” 

He had to beat the ship’s maze. If he died in here enough times it was all over outside, and the ship had promised not to revent him. He even mostly believed it. 

It was glorious. It was the best fight and the best sex of his life and even though he was fucking losing there for a while, running what felt like face first into its very first level defences over and over again, it was the time of his life. 

The Mind was vast, and full of shadows and light. Flashes and crackles fired everywhere. If he touched surfaces information streamed through him, using him as just another conduit for the ship’s thoughts. If he hit it just right it was orgasmic, and if he hit it even more right it was the sweetest, most perfect agony. He could have gotten lost inside it and never emerged again, staying here tormented and safe within a being who might even understand him. He was tempted, but he was who he was, and he’d never willingly walked away from a battle in his life. 

Sometimes it was enough to touch the ship’s awareness, learn its intentions as far as he could; sometimes it spoke to him. Sometimes it didn’t seem to know where he was at all, and he made up ground, working his way further inside its defences, perhaps further inside the ship’s Self. 

Every so often it dropped its avatar in with him, cornered him and fought flesh body to flesh body, or at least what felt like it, and it made him feel alive again. He didn’t know how that worked and didn’t ask; it was just one more glorious engine of war. 

He did it, in the end. He got through it, found the very core of the ship, triumphant, and he came back to his body, his real one or at least the version the ship had stitched back together from the self-bombing run he’d been on. He opened his eyes, and the avatar was right fucking there, eyebrow cocked. 

“Come on then, Zakalwe. You fucked me, now how about it?”

And yeah, yeah, why not. What did it matter, he might be in love with this ship after that experience; its unfathomable vastness, its delight and its cruelty. It loved war like he’d loved war on a few occasions, before all the battles bore him down and churned him into the shape of the eternal soldier. It understood, although not the urge toward self-negation. 

So he let it, he even spread himself wide for Demeisen’s long cock to work up into him. It felt like being fucked with a railgun, bright with pain and surprise, amazing him with the joy of it, a new experience. Doing this by choice, opening himself wide for its pleasure. He was aware of the perversity of it, the ship taking him like this, and he and ship both liked that, liked running right up to the edge of civilised behaviour and then out over the edge. 

It hurt him while it fucked him, and it made him feel unhinged with the pleasure of it at the same time. He knew it liked his voice and he let it make him scream. It sank too-sharp teeth into his shoulder when it came, and that last bright point of pain pushed him into his own shattering orgasm. 

There was silence after, both of them stunned. 

Eventually, Demeisen coughed. “I should heal you.” He levered himself up, and Zakalwe, blinking, saw that he was shaky. Well, that was something for his list of life achievements. Avatars didn’t tend to dent when you threw them, and if they did fuck _—_ and they didn’t, actually _—_ they sure didn’t fuck until they could hardly stand. 

“Can’t you let me enjoy it for a bit?” he complained, raspy after all the screaming. “I’m not dying.”

“No,” Demeisen agreed faintly. “There’s that to be thankful for.”

“Fuck, you don’t need psychological help now too, do you? It’s fine. You fucked me, sure, but it’s just another kind of fight. You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“I think I’m going to talk to you directly for a bit anyway,” the ship said in its own voice, walking Demeisen away. “I need to think properly for a bit. Sex does do some spectacular things to the chemistry of a body, doesn’t it? I think I understand some things better now.”

Zakalwe snorted. “Yeah, the chemistry will get you, but the spark’s gotta be there first, ship. The meeting of minds, if you will.” He laughed. “Sure met yours. Fuck.”

The ship materialised a packet of cigarettes over him where he lay on the deck, and it smacked down on his chest. He took one out. “Thanks,” he said, pausing with his lips pursed around it, until the ship zapped it with a laser and it lit up satisfyingly. 

So maybe he’d stick around a bit, get to know the ship a bit more. Maybe they could help each other; the thing he’d found at the end of the maze was something the ship would definitely never have given up willingly: it was lonely. There was something he could give it. It made that part of him that never really gave up on poetry spark up. 

It was a pretty good cigarette. 

Maybe the ship could help him with that situation he’d run across a few missions ago. He’d always meant to go back and tie up a few loose ends here and there. 

_

“Was that really the result you were going for, Sma?” the drone asked, resigned. It should have expected something like this. Taking the disaster human to the disaster ship, well, why should anyone be surprised. 

“Well…” she said, lips pursed, “I asked the ship for help stablising my agent. I think what it’s actually done is create a whole new problem, but technically speaking, the mission is a success. No suiciding agent, no berserk sprees.” She paused. “Well. None yet.”

“Yet,” the drone sighed. “They’ve gotten halfway married, those psychos. What is there going to be but explosions?”


End file.
